When I enabled compositing in Slacko 5.3.3t, things didn't run well. i.e. added to /root/.xinitrc the code line

xcompmgr -c -C &

Opaque window moves and resizes left historic trails of windows.

Upgrading jwm to JWM-755 (and updating jwm config also), things improved a lot - but still not 100%. The transparency works well, with increasing transparency the more windows that are opened on top. And opaque window moves and resizes generally work as expected - but can at times still leave a residue region - see the first image in the attached set. The top pinkish box is from where the Frisbee wireless dialog was being reported and then closed (leaving that pink square), the residue in the middle of the screen is from where a screen capture was triggered and closed (leaving that residue). In other cases I have seen some normal window residue being left.

I've uploaded Slacko_5.3.3t_v2.05a (alpha) - 93MB ISO as it currently stands https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4MbXu8cvE_WNEVNVHBxOHdBNnc/edit?usp=sharing. the .xinitrc code line has been commented out so it runs as normal, you have to remove that comment # and restart x-server to start the compositing effects. You also need quite a good graphics card/driver as opaque window moves/resizes combined with compositing is a relatively heavy graphics demand/load.

The only other changes I've made in 2.05a so far is to include a Flash 10 patch script (in HOME directory) that corrects desktop bleed when youtubes are being played in firefox and firefox is minimised (can leave the youtube video still visible through the desktop). I've also updated the PPM content (original database content was dated).

In normal (non compositing) mode things seem to all run OK, it would be nice however to get compositing working as intended - but I'm at a loss as to how to go about correcting the current problems. Its still usable and generally nice, but the periodic residues being left on the desktop are a annoyance.

I've also added Blender 2.59 to my shared googledrive set (together with a recordmydesktop sub-directory that contains the relevant PET's for that to work under Slacko 5.3.3t). The Blender 2.59 version works best with the Openshot video editor also in that set - for unknown reasons 2.63 doesn't work with that version of Openshot.

Blender 2.59 has no menu, it just installs to / so that when you enter /blender in the Openshot preferences menu you can create animated titles within Openshot. If you want to use Blender as a stand alone (3D animations) then Blender 2.63 is the one to grab as that installs a menu entry.

The other thing to grab to work with Openshot is the inkscape PET - as that's called by Openshot when you want to create scrolling titles.

Another neat feature with Openshot is that you can merge two videos. Pick a transparent colour in one that's in a timeline above another, and the lower one shows through. i.e. you could perhaps web cam a video of yourself against perhaps a black background, have another video of perhaps your desktop (recorded using xvidcap or recordmydesktop) and then set black to be transparent, so that it looks like you're actually sitting inside the desktop.

I haven't actually got xvidcap to record both video and audio. What I do is record both separately anyway. Have the vidcap as capturing video only and use mhWaveEdit to record audio. Having made the recording I tidy up the audio using Audacity - which has options to amplify (or attenuate) the sound level, and a neat option to filter out background noise (my computer makes quite a whirring sound that I don't notice at the time, but do notice when it comes to listen to the audio). Just leave a few seconds of silence at the start of recording and then highlight that in Audacity and use the Effect, Noise Removal menu option and click the Get Profile choice, then highlight all of the sound track and select Effect, Noise Removal and click the OK button - and all of the background noise (grinding computer) is gone.

Once you've got a cleaned up audio (and adjusted the amplification to what sounds good), you can combine both the video with the audio using Openshot. Just a matter of moving the tracks around until they're both in sync (and cut out the lead (and trail) parts as desired).

Add in some titles, background music, some trailer (scrolling text perhaps) and export the edited video and upload to youtube (or create WEMB to include in a web page). I've been doing all that on a 1.5GB RAM single core system (I do however have a Nvidia card which probably helps quite a bit).

I'm tempted to create it's own page....let me know and I'll generate one

I've taken time to be helpful hereabouts, but had posts disappear - with no private message from the moderators or any other explanation as to why.Last edited by rufwoof on Fri 02 May 2014, 16:59; edited 1 time in total

I've taken time to be helpful hereabouts, but had posts disappear - with no private message from the moderators or any other explanation as to why.

That happens quite a lot - I think there are bugs in the forum software, or maybe the server. It's very annoying. Sometimes the posts don't show up at all at the time you post them, but sometimes they appear for 5 minutes, then disappear, and other times they stay up for a few hours but aren't there the next day.

Within the ISO's 'EXTRA' sub directory are burning utilities to help with burning a bootable ISO (using 7-Zip or Winrar ... or whatever archiver you prefer to view the contents of the ISO and copy either the 32 bit or 64 bit version of the burner to a Windows directory ... and run/use that)

No browser - for that you can either use (located in the EXTRA subdirectory) :

1 firefox portable (copy the relevant file out of the EXTRA directory to your hardisk, extract it (double click to startup xarchive and select/extract the content) ...and then run that).

2. use the get_latest_firefox script in the HOME directory to automatically download and start the latest version of firefox.

3. Load the firefox.sfs file (right click and select sfs_load)

The first (firefox portable) can remain on your HD and will start up like you left it (addons, bookmarks etc). The second and third choices just load for the session (so perhaps good for online banking where you boot/load Slacko into memory, and run a browser in memory, going nowhere else other than to your banks website before/after so its secure).

Also in EXTRA are a number of sub-directories, each with a loadxxx file that load the extras. One directory for abiword and gnumeric, with abiword also loaded with a UK (English GB) dictionary). Another for graphics card upgrades (one for Nvidia, another for mesa (only need to load one of the two according to whether you have a Nvidia graphics card or not)). Another for multi-media, that loads xvidcap (record video of screen content), audacity (sound editor/recorder), Openshot (video editor) and Blender (used by Openshot to create 3D animations). inkscape (drawing program) is also included as that's also used by Openshot when creating scrolling titles etc.). There's also a flash directory and load_flash file in order to ... load flash.

When you load the graphics (mesa or nvidia) you'll have to exit X (MENU, EXIT TO PROMPT) and run xorgwizard in order to select NVIDIA. Without Nvidia (or mesa) loaded Openshot might not be able to create 3D animations.

Collectively the versions and choice of EXTRA's seems to work well together. And you have the option to either boot to a very light desktop, or relatively easily expand the power/functionality.

I've tried to create a more usable desktop set. Many of the Puppy's I've tried myself seem to leave you hanging. A lot of effort goes into the desktop look and feel, but behind that the programs users might use often have weaknesses/bugs. As an example I tried Studio 4 the other day, which is intended for the creative/musical, however Openshot was lacking inkscape and Blender associated programs and as such couldn't create animated titles nor 3D effects. When I tried the package library to get those..... well I gave up after a hour or so to get a workable system up and running.

I'd suggest just booting from CD all of the time. Copy the EXTRA directory to your hardisk and load which bits you want at the time from there. That way your existing PC/Windows system is unaffected, other than having the EXTRA directory beneath the root directory. Once you've booted from CD a number of times - rather than having to enter in locale and network details each and every time, you might want to try remastering your own bootable CD (MENU, SETUP, REMASTER PUPPY LIVE-CD).

This is a alpha (first cut), but seems ok. I'm running with it myself. But that will likely have changes. For instance the current version doesn't have a firefox browser icon either on the desktop or in the tray/taskbar after you load the firefox sfs, you have to MENU, UTILITY, GEXEC EXECUTE A COMMAND and type in 'firefox' to get the browser up and running (ditto for Blender). Personally I use the firefox-portable choice as there are several add-ons that I like (noscript, zoom, flash-block) and I also tend to bookmark things so its nice to have those persist from one session to another.

I don't run with a savefile - so when I shutdown and it asks to save I just click the NO option. Savefiles might be used - but I like having all of memory available as 'file-space' rather than being restricted to whatever filesize I allocated to a savefile.

I really ought to spend more effort on documentation. More recently I've primarily focused on just getting the 'package' working and running well. That's starting to diminish however as it improves, so that should free up time for me to spend more time on documentation. I'm hoping to establish a relatively stable set of apps - much more so that looking to 'upgrade' as IMO often the devil you know is better than repeatedly updated versions. You get to know the quirks and workarounds with a fixed set.

Whilst this is a en-GB (English) version - generally that just applies to the xvKbd (on screen keyboard) and abiword dictionary elements. There are other country on screen keyboard configurations buried within the system .,, and there are other dictionaries that can be downloaded/used. Perhaps in a later version I might look to automate switching locale for those apps.

As a footnote, remember that by default I set ROX (desktop) to use double-clicks.

Another thing I nearly forgot to mention is that the xvidcap (I think) doesn't record both video and sound - only video (may work for some ??).

Generally if you're just looking to record both video and sound into one file and upload that to youtube or wherever as is then your video will tend to be relatively low quality. The way to go about it IMO is to record both video and sound separately and then use Openshot to edit those together into a single file. So a case of opening one (or maybe more if you want to record sound from different sources (computer, your voice)) Audacity sessions and get sound recording going, and then use xvidcap to record your desktop (or whatever other program/source of video (webcam maybe)).

Once you have those separate sound(s) and video(s) files, use Openshot to pull them all in and manually sync them together - adding in any lead-in or ending-titles etc. and effects (fade in/out). And finally EXPORT the finalised video.

Before using Openshot however, you'll probably want to tidy up the audio. In audacity you can highlight a quiet section and use that as a sample that's applied to the entire video - i.e. greatly reduces/eliminates any annoying sounds such as wind or a computer whirring in the background. You can also attenuate or amplify parts of or the entire sound track(s) - so that the overall end video looks and sounds so much better.

HOME (/root) directory
Firefox wget script - small script that downloads the latest version
of firefox directly from Mozilla (note that if you are running in
LiveCD mode it is recommended that you copy any downloads to your
Hard Disk drive (HDD) so that they're preserved/available across reboots).

Normal Puppy Package Manager repository (suggest you update the
database upon first running as the distributed database version
has been slimmed down to save space).Last edited by rufwoof on Fri 02 May 2014, 17:08; edited 4 times in total

When booting with a CD (DVD) in a two CD/DVD drive system, the boot up would pause on the Searching... stage, generate a ...Pausing message and hang there for 5 seconds - waiting to read from a CD/DVD drive that had no disc in it - before giving up and continuing. Fixed by updating probepart_init within initrd.gz.

I've also removed the initial boot logo screen as some office based users prefer it without that logo/splash.

Just a reminder - but when you boot a Puppy LiveCD then using the

puppy pfix=ram pmedia=cd

boot parameters is the choice to use if you want to boot totally from CD and run in RAM, without puppy looking for files (savefile or puppy sfs) on any Hard Disk partitions.

New version uploaded - this version has Pizzagood's Edit SFS code (Utility menu option program) adjusted to also use extreme compression when rebuilding the SFS (to reflect the changes made in remasterpup2).

Both Edit SFS and remasterpup2 are now using 1024K compression dictionary size.

That makes remastering quite a lot slower and it will sit at 100% compressed for several minutes before completing. Could really do with a prompt to say be patient at that point - but provided you sit it out the extra space savings are reasonable.

The higher compression is the primary reason why this distro has so much in such a small ISO.

On a point of note, you save more space (smaller ISO) if you combine zdrv in with initrd. Having initrd and zdrv separate results in a larger ISO.

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